Far Called Trilogy 01 - In Dark Service by Stephen Hunt Read Free Book Online Page B

the Landor heir discovered a fresh itch that needed scratching. If Duncan was this competitive and hostile when the pampered pup was waiting in the wings to take over from his old man, how bad would he be when he finally sat on Benner Landor’s immense pile of wealth? It didn’t bear thinking about. You’ll be long gone by then, Carter Carnehan. It’ll be some other fool’s problem . Carter cursed his father’s intervention out on the field. Didn’t the pastor understand there were some matters that couldn’t be settled by prayer and good intentions, only blood? The two of them should have settled their hard business there and then. Carter could have skewered the rich young idiot’s leg and left Duncan Landor a limp to remember him by every time he hobbled across one of the House of Landor’s numerous holdings. That would have been the best way imaginable for Carter to sail away from Northhaven for a new life. Duncan Landor left lame and with a lesson in manners that would surely teach him a valuable lesson about the true nature of his fellow Weylanders. They were free men in the north, not vassals or serfs. The pockets that the House of Landor filled with their coins in the prefecture entitled the paymaster to an honest day’s labour, not the recipient’s life and soul. Who the hell did Duncan Landor think he was, ordering Carter around like one of his damn stable boys? They could stick it up their arse, the whole bloody house… the controlling patriarch, the haughty daughter and the arrogant prick of a son.
    Carter slapped his leg in anger, relishing the sting of it, something real as he watched Duncan’s snappish sister disappear over the hill on her horse, towards some poor unsuspecting farmhouse filled with tenants who were about to get a tedious lecture in proper economy and their own good business. ‘Goodbye, Willow Landor.’
    Back to wiping the dust off damned bookshelves.

    Carter lifted his fork, letting it toy with the pork crackling on the side of his plate. When his father said nothing, that is all it was. His father saying nothing: an absence of noise, maybe tinged with a vein of solemnity. When his mother said nothing, she could make the silence more intense and far worse than any shouting fit.
    ‘Maybe some more gravy?’ said Carter.
    His mother reached across the table and banged the hefty pottery jug down in front of him, still saying not a word.
    ‘What was I going to do?’ said Carter, giving in and breaking the uncomfortable silence. ‘I was called out. I didn’t start the duel.’
    ‘Walk on by,’ said Mary Carnehan. ‘When trouble comes, you just walk on by . Nobody that matters would think any less of you.’
    ‘Only everyone I know,’ hissed Carter. ‘My friends, all of our neighbours, even those dusty bookbinders buried under the hillside.’ He looked across the table at his father. ‘You told me that a man’s honour is like his soul – his to keep and no one else’s.’
    ‘It’s like a knife, boy,’ grumbled his father. ‘It’s got to grind up against life to stay sharp and stay in its guard until its edge is truly needed. That means holding your temper, treating your neighbours well, helping strangers, and not looking to sink a sabre into the gut of a man you were calling friend up until last year.’
    ‘What, you afraid old Benner Landor will forbid his tenant farmers to come to church on Bible day?’ laughed Carter. ‘Their family might hold every acre worth owning out to the sunset, but Duncan Landor doesn’t own me. He doesn’t get to push me around, he doesn’t get to order me about!’
    Mary Carnehan banged the table, making the heavy plates jump across the polished oak. ‘Do I get to tell you what to do, under my roof, my own blood?’
    ‘I’m working out at the library, aren’t I?’
    ‘And saving your money for a riverboat ticket down to the coast by the sounds of it,’ she added, raising her fork towards Carter. ‘Is that the way it’s